Festival
Gopāṣṭamī
Dates follow the Māyāpur (India) reckoning, the base of most published Vaiṣṇava calendars. The tradition sets each day by the tithi present at local sunrise, so your own date may fall a day earlier or later — see the calendar for your city.
Until Gopāṣṭamī the child Kṛṣṇa tends only the calves near the village; on this day Nanda gives him the cows, and he goes out to the far pastures with the older cowherd boys for the first time. The tradition keeps it as the day he becomes a gopāla in the full sense. It is a small domestic milestone that the chart's whole geography — the forest, the friends, the cows — depends on.
On the chart
Sources
- Gauḍīya Vraja tradition; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 10, Vraja pastimesChart / explanatory tradition
A study reference, not a devotional instruction. Observance varies by community and is not detailed here.